


Resemblance

by zavegonzo



Category: Pikmin (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Gen, Reincarnation, Species Dysphoria, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:35:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28373994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zavegonzo/pseuds/zavegonzo
Summary: Charlie gets turned into the Vehemoth Phosbat.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	1. Ain't Going Down Without a Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Y'know what the Pikmin fandom needs? More angsty transformation fic! I just sorta made this on a whim. I'm probably going to continue this in the future, but don't expect a consistent update schedule.

Captain Charlie was engulfed in warm, wet darkness. He screamed. He hadn’t gotten a good look at what had attacked him, but he knew that it was definitely a giant flying animal, and that it had eaten him.

No matter how much he struggled, his gloved fists failed to so much as bruise the stomach walls. He cussed under his breath. He wasn’t going to die here. He couldn’t. If he died, who would lead his crew?

His suit wouldn’t protect him for long. Even though it was made of thick, acid-resistant material, he knew that it would be no match for being submerged in stomach acids for hours upon hours.

A voice in the back of his head told him to give up. There was no chance he could survive this. He’d die no matter what.

 _No!_ He’d never give up! Captain Charlie was no quitter!

Even as holes were worn into his suit and the acid burned his skin, he kept on fighting, kicking, punching, and yelling.

The last thing he felt before the acid completely melted him was pure defiance.

But then, he was still there.

_What?_

He looked around. He was in a fairly well-lit cave, much brighter than the one he had been in before. Other than the lighting, it looked pretty similar. There were weird glowy mushrooms and fuzzy ball-shaped animals, but it was all much smaller. Some fuzz also hung around at the edge of his vision.

The ground felt rough under his belly.

_Wait._

His suit was gone. He was lying there, naked and unprotected.

Panicking, Charlie tried to stand up, only to fall onto his side. His legs weren’t working right. It felt like he had four of them, but that was ridiculous.

He instinctively took a deep breath before remembering that this planet’s air was toxic. He immediately coughed it out and tried to cover his face with his hands, only for a large, soft flap to smack him in the mouth.

“Argh!” he tried to say, but instead an oddly high-pitched roar came from his throat.

Captain Charlie was thoroughly confused at this point.

He realized that he had resumed breathing, but his body didn’t seem to have any issues with it. In fact, it felt refreshing. He wasn’t feeling the tell-tale burning lungs that usually came with breathing foreign planets’ air. Perhaps he was too close to death to feel it.

Well, given that he was already abandoned and naked in a cave on an alien planet, he figured it wouldn’t be that bad if he kept breathing the air.

He tried an old breathing exercise to calm himself down. Breathe in through his nose…

He didn’t have a nose.

 _Don’t panic_ , he told himself. _Just use your mouth instead, then._

He breathed in. Then out. The air was cold and tasted like dirt. But it wasn’t killing him, as far as he knew.

_Alright. What’s going on?_

Slowly and carefully, he put his belly to the ground and tried standing up again. He had four legs now. That was just a thing he had to deal with. He slowly lifted himself up.

Then he tried moving his arms. They felt… wider, and he had four of them as well. He tried flexing the front pair, and the flaps that had smacked him earlier waved.

Not just flaps. Wings.

He quickly realized what had happened to him. Forcing himself to keep breathing slowly, he closed his eyes.

_I’ve turned into the thing that ate me._


	2. Learn to Loathe Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie learns how to fly. Then he learns how to hunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for gore and self-hatred.

_Don’t panic,_ Charlie told himself.

He knew he was on the verge of a mental breakdown—understandable, given that he had just transformed into a giant man-eating beast. But he also knew that panicking would solve nothing, so he forced himself to stay as calm as possible.

_First order of business: try to get used to this strange new body._

He slowly flapped his four wings. Since his legs were small and weak, he’d need to learn how to fly in order to travel.

He curled his legs up, crouching closer to the ground, and then leapt while greatly beating his wings.

His wings kept him in the air for about two seconds before he ate shit into the ground.

_Ow!_

That didn’t go as planned.

He tried again. This time, he stayed aloft for _three_ seconds before falling.

_I’m making progress. That’s good._

Once more, he crouched down, and then jumped.

* * *

It took him a few hours to get the hang of it. His wings had to flap not too slow, and not too fast, and both pairs had to flap in unison. He was tired, and he wasn’t very good at it, but at least now he knew how to keep himself in the air.

Moving around was still something to work on.

Though he could now hover in place, any attempt to move in any direction made him go tumbling to the ground. His heavy body was easy to knock off balance.

Charlie rested on the cave floor and looked around.

The cave he was in was fairly small. There were a few ledges here and there, along with some wires and deactivated lightbulbs. It seemed that some sort of civilization had left its mark here, advanced enough to have invented electrical engineering. A bright light came through a large hole in the cave wall, probably from the sun.

The first time he noticed the lightbulbs, he was worried about potentially getting hunted by a nearby village or something. However, he then realized that the local wildlife had infested the cave so thoroughly that this place must have been deserted for decades.

_I bet an anthropologist would be able to find all sorts of interesting secrets in the tech left behind here. I wonder what the species that left this is like. Are they the size of Koppaites? Are they the size of… this body? So much to wonder about._

He sighed. He was rested enough to start practicing again.

* * *

With yet more hours of practice, he was able to move forwards while flying. Now he could go in three directions, including up and down.

The light outside the cave had become dim. The sun must have gone done.

Curiosity arose in him. He had barely got to see what was outside before his… transformation, and he wanted to go back out and explore. He figured that the wildlife wouldn’t bother him too much, given his huge size.

He crawled out of the cave. The air was cold and wet, and the dirt was covered in snow. He felt cold, but not uncomfortably so. Everything was brighter than he expected. The sun was nowhere to be seen, and the only source of light was the stars, but he could still see clearly. His eyes must have been really sensitive.

_Time to start flying._

Charlie flapped his wings in the wintry wind. The surrounding area looked stunning. Starlight twinkled upon a small river bisecting a pair of hills. He recognized it as the river he had crossed before entering the cave with those yellow creatures.

He wasn’t going to dwell on that.

There were some potato-shaped creatures sleeping near the shore that had eyestalks in pairs on the tops of their heads. They vaguely resembled Hocotatian dogs.

Charlie carefully descended until he was hovering only a few feet above the dogs. In all honestly, he was getting hungry. He had no idea what his new species ate, but looking at these defenseless sleeping creatures activated some sort of drive in him, a drive to _eat_.

He angled himself just right, opening his mouth, and swooped down.

The dog squealed in pain when his teeth sunk into its back. Its piping-hot blood filled his mouth with the taste of metal. The other dog woke up and fled.

He flew off with his meal tightly gripped between his teeth. He landed at the top of a hill, slowly gulping the blood from his prey.

And he then spat it out, roaring in disgust.

_What the fuck was that?! I… I just killed… A… What just came over me…?!_

The dog was still groaning in pain as it bled out onto the snow. Charlie looked at it in horror. The aftertaste of iron lingered on his tongue.

_I’m so sorry, I… What should I do…_

It was definitely going to die. It wasn’t like he could treat its wounds at all. And he was still a bit hungry.

He hated the way he salivated.

He hated how he ate the rest.

He hated how all that was left was the bones.

Captain Charlie hated himself.


	3. Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie reunites with Brittany.

These small fuzzy creatures in the cave were weird. Unlike… the things outside, they didn’t activate Charlie’s prey instinct at all. They made him feel weird.

They made him feel parental.

Perhaps these tiny beings were children of the same species that he was. He didn’t see much of a resemblance, but that would explain it.

He’d only been here for a couple days, but he was already getting attached to the little things. There were dozens of them and they were all too cute. He was actually starting to be able to tell them apart, and he gave them nicknames in his head.

There was this particularly large one that was really active and playful, and who at the moment was running around and headbutting the other kids. He named that one Striker.

One of them had slightly uneven eyes and preferred to wander alone. She was called Sandra.

The children’s names all passed through his mind as he scanned his eyes over them. Susan, Slalom, Stephan, Soto, SimayhaverunoutofnamesthatbeginwithS, Stone, Silantro…

Wait, one of them was missing! Where was Sorin?!

Charlie flew up onto one of the cave walls and looked around from the higher vantage point. He spotted a black fuzzball moving around on the opposite side of the cave, away from the other younglings.

He sighed. Good, that was all of the children accounted for.

Now that he knew they were safe, he figured it would be good for him to go out again. The night would soon end, and he needed to get food for them.

He tried to avoid thinking about what that obviously entailed. About what he had been doing since his first day in his new body.

* * *

“Hello? Is anyone here?”

Charlie stirred awake slowly. What was that noise? It sounded like…

“Helloooo? …Captain?”

… _Brittany?_

What was she doing here?! Had she and Alph gotten the ship in working order?!

He knew it would be bad for her to see him like this. He could barely form simple words in this form. There wasn’t a chance he’d be able to explain what had happened.

He moved to fly out, but looking at the exit, he realized it was still midday. The sun would blind him if he went out!

Instead, he flew up to the darkest corners of the cave walls and hid.

An eye-burning pink glow came walking in. Brittany was surrounded by some of the same yellow creatures that had accompanied Charlie.

Then, the children started to awaken. Charlie got a sinking feeling in his belly.

Sticking close to the glowing mushrooms, Brittany and her entourage walked through the cave. One little fuzzball started curiously heading towards her.

_Oh no, Sorin…!_

Brittany noticed the movement and quickly reacted. She threw one of the yellow creatures at him. Charlie screamed.

Parental instinct overtook him. He rushed from his hiding spot and swooped just above Brittany, almost knocking her over. She stumbled onto her butt in surprise and called the creatures back with her whistle. Striker ran away, crying.

“Ch—Charlie! Where are you?!” Brittany called out.

Charlie came back to his senses. He flew close to her again, but instead of attacking, he just flapped in place. _Please understand what I’m hinting at here!_

Brittany looked at him for a moment.

“Dammit…! If you’re Captain Charlie, stand down! And if you’re not, then I’ll have to kill you!” Brittany yelled as she and the yellow plant creatures ran out of his range. “I’ve killed before, and I won’t hesitate to do it again!”

_It’s clear she isn’t bluffing. I’d better do as she says…_

Abiding by her warning, he landed on the cave floor in front of her and acted docile.

Brittany stared at him. She slowly backed away.

“So you understand what I’m saying?”

He nodded as best he could with his body's weird neck.

“…You really are Captain Charlie?”

He nodded, more fervently. _Yes! Thank goodness she got it so quickly!_

Brittany sighed, shrugging. “Sorry about hurting your little friend there. I guess I should have expected… this.” She gestured at Charlie’s new body.

Charlie made a confused grunt and tilted his face slightly.

“I mean, Alph’s in basically the same predicament, after all.”

 _What?!_ He yelped in surprise.

“Yeah, he… To put it short, he tried to fight a huge monster on his own, this gigantic crystal centipede thing. It was too much for him to handle, and… Somehow, after it ate him, he took over its body. I’m guessing something like that happened to you?”

He nodded.

“Alright… It will be difficult for us, but we can make it through this. I’ll tell you everything I know about this planet so far to get you caught up.”


	4. Melancholy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Distant Tundra, Brittany has a rough night. At the Garden of Hope, Alph has a rough afternoon.

Whoa.

That was… a _lot_ to take in.

So, the yellow plant creatures were called Pikmin. There were three known varieties: Red, which were fire-resistant; Rock, which were like living rocks; and Yellow, the big-eared ones which Charlie had found, and which were also shock-resistant.

Brittany and Alph had landed in different locations, but Alph had thankfully managed to find the Drake and find Brittany where she had fallen. She had managed to get here because she (“with a _lot_ of trial and error,” she clarified,) integrated a native communications device that Alph had puked up with the Drake to detect the distress signal that his half-digested spacesuit was still producing.

Charlie had noticed that the local fruit were quite big, some almost as big as him! (Though, they weren’t terribly filling.) Apparently, all of this planet’s fruit was like that.

Well, it was good to know that if this mission succeeded, there wasn’t a chance Koppai would starve again. Charlie wondered if the large, meaty creatures could be used to feed Hocotate, if they ever experienced a similar crisis. Too bad he couldn’t ask.

Brittany’s talk took so long that the sun set by the time she finished. A look of worry flicked across her face for a moment before she said, “Eh, I’m sure you’ll keep me safe during the night?”

He groaned something that vaguely sounded like a “yes” and nodded.

“Good. And, don’t worry about my little squad. They don’t attack unless ordered to. But just in case, I’ll have them rest in that other… room… thingy. Can you call it a room if it was made by nature?”

Charlie flapped his wings in an approximation of a shrug. Brittany went to the other room with her Yellow Pikmin for a moment, and then returned to the main chamber alone.

“Alright, I’m gonna make myself comfy.”

* * *

Though the sun had set in the Distant Tundra, it was still the afternoon in the Garden of Hope.

Alph was spending this afternoon alone, just scuttling around. He was so big and armored that he didn’t have to worry about the wildlife attacking him.

He felt extremely awkward in this body. It was so different from a Koppaite’s, he constantly wondered if every little thing he did was hurting it in some way that he was ignorant to. He had learned from experience that it was rather easy to harm your body in a way you didn’t realize was harmful until it was too late. At least this new body didn’t have back pain from spending countless all-nighters slouched over a desk.

Thinking about his old life was painful. He noticed a puddle on the ground and stuck his tongue in it.

He still couldn’t get over how he could just drink whatever water he found lying around. Doing that as a Koppaite would get him sick, but his new instincts encouraged him to drink from random muddy puddles. That didn’t help with his anxiety about accidental self-harm. What if he got intestinal worms or something?!

Mindless worrying was never helpful, so he tried to dismiss the thought. Gosh, today was his first day without having Brittany to keep him company. He knew she had to go find Charlie, but he really wanted someone to comfort him right about now.

He really wanted to go back into his old body.

Too bad it was nothing more than a piece of blue vomit now.

_Don’t think about that, Alph. You can’t change what’s happened. This is just how you have to live now._

He was bored, and the puddle was mostly dry now. He turned away to scuttle somewhere else.

* * *

Brittany was quickly getting desensitized to the sheer insanity of her situation. Her crewmates got turned into huge freaky beasts? Cool, just another Tuesday for her. Her only hope on this alien planet is a bunch of tiny plant soldiers? Convenient, she needed to practice her leadership skills anyway.

She wasn’t a stranger to sleeping on the ground. She had spent a few nights after Alph’s transformation sleeping next to him, just to keep him company, to maintain a little bit of normalcy.

She _was_ a stranger to trying to sleep while being harassed by fuzzballs.

“I said stop!” She batted away Striker’s foot for the millionth time. This thing would just not leave her alone.

Charlie grumbled something that sounded like, “Be nice.” Brittany scoffed.

“Why don’t you tell this fuzzy jerk that?!” Brittany stood up and briskly walked away. Striker followed her.

“Fine…” Charlie landed next to Brittany. She and her little stalker stopped.

He spoke slowly, trying to sound as clear as possible with his alien mouth. It was still barely understandable. “He can’t climb. Sleep on my back.”

“Oh… Really? Is that OK with you?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Silently, Brittany walked right up to Charlie and gently grabbed at his wing. Her gloves didn’t allow her much dexterity, but she managed to get a grip in his fur.

If it weren’t for this planet’s low gravity, she probably wouldn’t have been able to climb up onto him. His fur was mostly black, but being up here gave her a better view of the long purple feelers clustered around his head.

Charlie’s body was warm. As she lied down, she could faintly hear the low thump of his heartbeat.

She closed her eyes.

Sleeping on her transformed captain’s back in the middle of a cave to avoid being harassed by weird fuzzball children? Just one more thing to add to the pile of insanity.


End file.
